Pages

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Oh Yeah? Well My God Can Beat Up Your God! Kickstarting the Dominion of the Gods

It's getting to where you need a very strong machete-shaped debit card to get through the tangled kickstarter jungle, but here is another I am feeling has good potential: Dominion of the Gods.

Odd thing is, I already wrote most of this game about six years ago. Not that I did anything with it, and not that it's exactly the same, and not that I'm not sure others have had the idea too. But as one of my favorite bands said, everything I do been's done before, every sentence in my head, someone else has said (see the bottom of this update). The idea is rich for harvest: The Mythologies of Humanity.

As a kid (yeah, as a kid, because you'd never have such conversations at this point in your life, right? Yeah, right) how often did you have heated discussions about who would win in a fight: Batman or Spiderman? The Hulk or The Thing? etc. And guess what? They made a game for that: heroclix.

This is similar: Who would win in a fight Thor or Ares? Which Mythology has the stronger monster, braver heroes? The struggle for religious dominance is a bloody affair which goes beyond the meager struggles of mankind, right up the ladder to the Gods themselves.

Being a huge fan of Mythologies, this immediately sparks my interest.

It appears to have the same introduction point that games like Warmachine & Hordes does: a leader, a hero, a couple creatures and a very big creature and you're good to go. Then it can be extended for bigger games with more of the same and units of mortal men. The theme is a strong one and there is so much room to expand, the starting point to this is only scratching the surface, so no worries that they wouldn't have room to expand the concept.

The first mini for this I saw was the Cyclops:

Damn that's fun.

My first thought was 'What an awesome Blood Bowl Ogre that would make!'

I still may prefer Ray Harryhausen's Cyclops, but your first loves will always be dear to your heart.

This guy is cool in spades though and will make a great centerpiece to an army.

The Minotaur is also top notch: easily one of the best I've seen.

I like his pose, hunched and menacing rather than the static baseball bat gripped axe that's all-too common.

So the miniatures are top quality and the game & it's theme look good & ripe for expanding, what do you get for your cash?

They recently upped the reward for a basic pledge, making it now quite a good deal:

Let's compare this to Privateer Press's Hordes, since that's likely the most equatable comparison:

A Skorne battlebox gets you a heavy beast, 2 light beasts, and a leader, for $50 retail. Add a heavy beast kit: $35 ($50 if you want the Bronzeback, which you probably would but we won't for this purpose) and a Void Spirit solo for $10. That comes to $95 retail, or about $76 with online discounters. So this still comes in at quite a good value: both in cost and quality.

Currently they've got Norse, Celt, and Greek committed to, and just announced Cthulhu Mythos!

That's got to be of interest to any who love the Lovecraftian creatures. And further myths are planned to get involved, such as Hindu, which sounds very fun to me!

There's only just under 2 weeks left at the time of writing this, and they've only just passed 1/3 of their goal.

That is worrisome to me. I think maybe they set a goal that was too high and daunting but it is a big undertaking, so I can't say their target fund isn't realistically needed to make it happen. There are more and more kickstarters happening, which means more competition for people's hobby money. Add to that, a lot of bigger companies are using it now, which I don't have a problem with, but it does mean that those companies can set a lower funding goal, just needing money to 'prime the pump' and gauge interest level, where a small company that doesn't have a pool of resources to draw on has to make sure the finish line is fully funded before committing to start: it's a different set of conditions for them. And so there are not a lot of stretch goals and freebies with this one, but I think what you get is a good bargain as-is, and the chance to bring the fun settings of Mythologies to the tabletop and see who's got the stronger pantheon!

- and there are some fun freebies, like a special coin and the chance to buy a nice limited amazon.

Even if you are not sure you'd like the game or find others to play it, the miniatures are great quality and could be used to double dip into many systems, so I doubt anyone wouldn't get their money's worth.

Money where their mouth is: I'm backing this, it does look exciting to me.

So check it out for yourself, and see if $55 (or more) isn't worth 6 nice minis,many of them big monsters, and the chance to bring some of humanity's most interesting mythologies to life.

Speaking of expanding into more mythologies, someone on Lead Adventure Forum asked if they'd have a Christian myth faction too, perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, but why not? In the game I was writing within this theme and idea I compiled info, stats and game-abilities for over a dozen mythologies, Christian being one of them. At first you might think it doesn't have much potential, since they don't have warrior gods and big monsters, and what's Jesus' special ability going to be? As Thor calls down lightning, Jesus will do what? create a magical barrier of bread and fish? The water walking could be useful for crossing river terrain, and while not too useful in a one-off game, the 3 day resurrection could prove valuable in a campaign setting!

But Biblical Angels are serious bad asses. Not to be underestimated, and not nice at all. All those modern women saying they have angels looking out for them, they better hope looking out doesn't mean looking for.

But monsters? I guess most would think it'd be a boring faction, but check this out!

My friend emailed me this picture, it was left on his door. That looks like a warband right there!

(thanks for the picture Dan! you well know the odd stuff that makes my day!)

Are these really the types who used to complain about D&D? This looks right out of the Monster Manual!

I want to play this faction! A dragon? Hell yeah! No bigger and stronger big monster than that!

That winged lion must be a pretty good monster too. Flight is a real tactical advantage on the table.

The ability to out maneuver your opponent and bring a powerful strike where your enemy is weak is worth a lot more than a more powerful creature. That multi-headed flying leopard is an odd one. Well, these mythologies do get a bit weird, but maybe it's good against units: not as powerful of an attack but a lot more lesser attacks is perfect to counter players who bring a lot of infantry spam. This is looking like a flexible list!

The bear is an odd one... I'm thinking it doesn't really fit the theme well. But not every faction is going to appeal to you 100%. Not that I don't like bears- I love bears! I'm just not sure how well it fits into the faction's theme. And why is he eating Twizzlers, and why are they bloody? (But I'm sure I could convert it to remove those) Well, on the off chance your opponent fields the rare choice of mortal children with special attack: mock your baldness, you'll be ready to eat those children up!

Really not sure about the miniature of Non-egregious Jesus though. It's very static for one and kind of has a stoner-hippie-surfer vibe going: again, not sure it fits the theme. But maybe there will be an alt sculpt coming.

Better would be angry, in a tattered robe, hands out, like knocking over money changer tables style.

Bringing the smite-down.

-- none of this silly rambling is about the Dominion of the Gods game (so if offended, I get sole credit for that!), just the romp my mind takes when I see things like this. Like I said, myth is fun and offers a lot of good gaming potential!